The team led by Rúben Amorim has a comfortable advantage of seven points over Benfica, the current champion and current second place, which ends the round on Monday, at the Farense stadium, while FC Porto, third, is already mathematically away from the title.

But an easy meeting is not expected for the lions. The fact is that the Guimarães team, despite not being in the race for the title, have a say in the European competitions. The Minhotos occupy the fifth place, two points away from FC Porto and Sporting de Braga, fourth place, tied with the Dragons, in a three-way race for access to the Europa League.

It should be recalled that Vitória SC, who won five of the last six games in the competition, won the only confrontation with Sporting in the 2023/24 season, in the first round, by 3-2. This will certainly be a tough 'bone' to chew for Sporting, who also presents credentials in the games played at Estádio de Alvalade. The team coached by Rúben Amorim is the only 100% victorious in their stadium and can obtain the eighth consecutive triumph, equaling the best series of the I League, which already belongs to them.

Therefore, the necessary ingredients are gathered for a heated meeting on this Sunday night in Lisbon. The duel between Sporting and Vitória SC has a starting whistle scheduled for 8:30 pm and will be judged by Cláudio Pereira.

Coaches in direct speech

Rúben Amorim

Alvalade has become a fortress: "What has been prepared is to achieve our goals and win all the games. I think our audience this year helped us a lot in difficult times. In other years it was difficult to deal with an opponent's goal. This year, at the right moments, Alvalade helped us and led us to victory. When there is a game in Alvalade, a positive dynamic has been created that I would say was the 12th player."

Do the players know they can lose the championship? "I spent the whole season saying that we were capable of winning the championship. I changed the speech and every day I tell them that we can lose the championship. It's the coach's job. I would say that we have always believed and I have always focused on saying that we could win. Now I focus the players that we can lose. It's not thinking negatively. It's leaving that positive anxiety to take the games seriously. We believe and we will be convinced of it."

Benfica seven points behind: "From my experience, the more weeks pass, and the way the team plays, will take away hope from the opponents. There are five rounds to go, we already have some advantage. Maintaining the advantage makes everything more difficult for the opponents. I say this because I have already experienced this. Nothing is done. A small setback is enough to change everything. We have to win our game."

Álvaro Pacheco

Expectations: "We have to be a compact, united team and close not only the interior spaces, but also the attacks in depth. With the ball, we have to be authoritative and know where to 'hurt' Sporting."

Defensive criteria: "Defensively, we will have to be a very careful team. We will have to have a lot of anticipation capacity and know the 'timings' to 'jump' to the pressure. There will be many duels and we have to be attentive."

Atmosphere in the stadium: "To be close to winning, we have to be close to our essence. Our opponent will have a full stadium. Sporting's last league defeat was with Vitória [on the 13th round]. I hope we are able to be calm, to abstract ourselves from the environment and to focus on our game."

Last results

Sporting: W-D-W-W-W

Vitória SC: W-L-W-D-L

Last eleven

Sporting: Charles Silva, Manu Silva, Toni Borevkovic, Jorge Fernandes, Bruno Gaspar, Tomás Händel, Tiago Silva, Nuno Santos, Afonso Freitas, Jota Silva, Nélson Oliveira.

Vitória SC: Franco Israel, Ousmane Diomande, Sebastián Coates, Gonçalo Inácio, Geny Catamo, Daniel Bragança, Morten Hjulmand, Nuno Santos, Francisco Trincão, Viktor Gyökeres, Pedro Gonçalves.

Absences

Sporting: Adán and Matheus Reis (injured); Ricardo Esgaio and Diomande (punishment); Geny Catamo (in doubt).

Vitória SC: João Mendes and Telmo Arcanjo (injured); Bruno Gaspar and Jorge Fernandes (punishment); Ricardo Mangas (in doubt).

Also Read: Pacheco asks for a "compact and united" Vitória in the visit to the leader Sporting (Portuguese version)

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